I plugged my Creative Zen

found this hope it works
posted on Feb 25, 2009 abeales
If you have windows set to do automatic updates, you most likely had a windows update installed that caused this conflict with Win Media Player 11. No fix has been posted by Microsoft yet, so the only workaround is to Uninstall/Rollback Windows Media Player 11. Goto <Control Panel<Add/Remove Programs and remove Windows Media Player 11. Follow prompts, restart computer when prompted to. Also uninstall Windows Media Player 11 Runtime application following same procedure above.
This will roll your Windows Media Player back to version 10 or 9, whichever you had installed prior to version 11. You will need to re-configure Windows Media Player again.

Your Zen should now be recognized by WMP and Creative software. You probably need to upgrade your firmware at this point, follow the instructions on upgrading your firmware, and you should be good to go.

This is a windows problem, not a creative problem. Dont blame Creative for the screwed up hotfixes that Microsoft puts out on a regular basi